I have heard about this 4d pre-natal scan... but seeing it is something else!

Check out this link from MSNBC, absolutly amazing.

The upstairs bedroom is done with hanging the sheet rock! The ceiling in the den is done and all the lights have been wired and the speaker wire is done.

I am taking Tuesday and Wednesday off to work on ModelExchange and then we are going to knock out the walls in the den and start "muddin"

Interesting article that I am copying from Gatoreena...

10 Foods you should never put in your body

For those of you thinking about doing the Atkins diet (or any diet for that matter) take some time and listen to this squirrel.

WARNING
This link contains bad words, consider yourself warned.
WARNING

The anti Atkin's Squirrel

So I have purchased the components needed to update the wiring in the Den to be half as cool as I would like. It will have two ethernet (internet) jacks on either side of the built-in entertainment center and in-wall speaker jacks to plug audio out cables from the back of the reciever into.

Pretty cool what you can do when you take the walls and ceiling off a room.

My sister Leigh is going on the second part of their Lewis and Clark expedition Saturday. They have / will continue to bike most of the trail and ending this 2nd phase with a canoe section that will closely match the original trip performed by the Lewis and Clark corp so many years ago.

You can follow their adventures online!

Just to give further context... she works at Western Carolina in their Talent Search outreach department

Good Luck Leigh and Crew! Be safe.

Do you like to laugh at people being klutzes while on national TV?
Yes | No

We looked at this house when we were thinking about buying (Sept. 2003)... it was listed for right around $200k ... talk about markup!

So I am going to try to write this entry so that my mother can understand the importance of the following article.

First... some definitions (well I think I will use analogies):
A protocol is like a language.
  Analogy Don can understand the words that Lois is speaking because they both speak the same language
  substitution Don's cell phone can understand messages that Lois's cell phone are sending because they both use the same protocol

Wireless communication is like radio communication
  Analogy I am able to listen to the radio because a radio station transmits signals over a set frequency and my radio has a receiver that listens on that frequency (I have a range of frequencies that I can choose from). The radio receiver has to also translate the signals into sounds (songs, talk radio, etc)
  substitution My cell phone is able to communicate with other nearby cell phones because the other cell phones transmit signals over a set frequency and my cell phone has a receiver that listens on that frequency (it listens on only one frequency per protocol). My cell phone has to also translate the signals into displayable text and instructions ("You are currently in my area... I am looking to sell a washing machine" or an instruction to the owner of the cell phone, like inform owner that a profile of a potential friend is available if they would like to check it out)

Given those two things and knowing that Bluetooth can be considered a protocol here is an article about a new service in Singapore that allows your cell phone to notify you of strangers in your proximity that are looking for friends or have something that they would like to sell or purchase.

Kent and I hung 12 pieces of sheet rock last night, and will be finishing up with the upstairs bedroom tonight... well finished with screwing up the sheet rock... then comes the tapping, mudding and sanding. For an overview of the process check out Hometime's How To on the installed drywall (drywall, sheet rock, wallboard... all the same thing). It really isn't that hard, but it is nice to have an experienced handy man helping me out. He has all the cool tools. For example, we get to use his panel lift versus have to use homemade T-Braces (or even worse balancing them on the tops of our heads).

I have to run the wiring for the new lighting in the den on Friday night and the speaker wire for the in-wall speakers that we are going to install. I also have finish caulking the new windows that were installed last week... they are insulated and caulked from the inside... just hadn't found time while it is light to get to the outside, and luckily it hasn't rained yet.

We have decided to have Kent create a built-in for the den with a desk on either side and a entertainment area in the middle. We are going to pimp it out with some back lighting and accent lights for the desks. Kent's actual title at the Navy base is carpenter so it should be his specialty... will post pictures when it is all done so you guys can see how good he is.

Ripped out the celing in the Den tonight... and now more nasty carpet either... just need to wire the room for the new lights, getting excited about the progress.

Last night Kent didn't show up for an hour and then called to say his daughter's graduation was last night and they were taking her to dinner.... ummm couldn't you have know that before an hour after you were to show up?!?

So tonight I decided, I am going to take a break and go to a work party (her work, not mine) so I can at least sample the cheesecake I made (I have made 6 in my relatively short life span,and only tasted 3 of them).

I also had to cancel the Tree removal guy until next Thursday, but oh well.

So Saturday we will be installing the windows. Last night I finished running the wiring in the upstairs bedroom, and hooked must of it up to the outlets and light switches... I really enjoy doing electrical work. After I got tired of doing that I wanted to lift heavy things, so I cleaned out the mess in the Den and carried it all out front to the trash container. VERY Exhausting. But the den is now "preped" for us to dry wall it.

Sherry has purchased the new carpet for the Den and we will be picking it up Sunday (or it will be delivered tonight if Mike Hunter is able to fit it into his trailer).

So at my work I am known as "the Java Guy" (for those of you that don't know, Java is a computer language that I have been using to writting software for the last 5 years or so). They call me that because they are all C++ programers. I don't mind, because I feel that getting good in both can only make me stronger, so I am learning my way as best I can. But something that is commonly said is that C++ is so much faster then Java... I found this interesting little article on the subject and although most of you could care less about it... it is my blog so I get to post whatever I want

Here is a picture that my sister Leigh wanted me to post (why she couldn't post it on her own flickr page is beyond me??!?!). It is a picture of Aqua Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico. If I have the story correct, my grandmother aquired this photo while she was there back in the 30's.

This track is pretty significant in the horse racing world, and is of recent signficance because of the movie Seabiscuit. Many of the greatest horses of all time competed at this track, namely Seabiscuit and Australia's dream horse (Phar Lap). It is quite interesting how closly related these two horses are... I think I will go rent the movie Phar Lap this weekend after reading up on this race track.

If you are like millions and enjoy reading up on this blog every once and a while, but don't like to remember to come check it out... you can enter your email address to the right (in the field titled "Enter your email address below to subscribe to Beebe's Thoughts!") and have a free service called Bloglet email you a summary of the day's posts. The service is smart enough to only email you on days that I post something (no email will be sent on days that nothing is posted).

Another tool I want to point out, for those of you that read multiple blogs, is a free service called Kinja, where you can set up a list of blogs that you would like to aggregate and it will provide you with a summary of recent posts for all of the blogs in one place, so you only have to check one website to see if anyone has posted versus visiting all of them. Click here to see my digest of blogs that I check daily.

I am pretty busy as of late. With this construction work going on at my house all of my free time is taken up with the "homework" I have to do between the days that I am paying the "professional", Kent, to help me. I figure it is the wise move to have someone around that does this for a living to help with the renovation work falling into the skilled category. His rate is a pretty fair price, since he is a friend of Pearl's from the church, but I do have to make sure he doesn't talk his way into a lot of free money... because the dude can talk!

Last weekend Shawn and I ripped out the sheet rock, and some of the cardboard sheets that were holding the old insulation in place (wish we had known better, and left them in place)... once we saw how ancient the insulation was, and considering we were not sure if it was asbestos or not, we decided to wear respirators for the rest of the weekend (see Sherry during cleanup). After I was finally able to find a piece of insulation that was intact enough to read, Sherry did some research and found that Kimsul Insulation is not asbestos based, but was in fact popularized by the 1948 movie "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" in which Cary Grant says, "Wrap your home in blanket of Kimsul."

On Monday night I ripped out the den's walls and built-in book shelves, and on Tuesday finished the prep work for the upstairs and went with Kent and Sherry to Lowes to purchase the sheet rock, replacement windows, and other materials.

Sherry had also volunteered to bring a cheesecake to a work party on Friday, but after her first attempt at cheesecake on my Birthday (story not posted to protect good intentioned, but you can use your imagination) she had to swallow her pride and ask me to make it. So in between loading all of our deconstruction mess (from the street to the container), I whipped up a cheesecake. We decided after hauling all the old drywall to the road that it would be worth the $300 to get a trash container, which was delivered yesterday (only two days late). The good news about them being two days late was that after some angry phone calls asking "where the hell is my container" they gave me the free upgrade from the 12-yard to the 20-yard, which I think we will need anyway.


After the cheesecake was baked... and cracked (pretty upset about that one)... I decided that I had better run out to Home Depot (have to spread the love... can't just spend ALL our money at one home improvement store) to pick up some wiring. I like older homes, but wiring from the 1940's just gives me the willies. So since we have the walls out I figured I would take this opportunity to update the wiring and decrease the fire hazard of older wiring.

So when I got home at 9:30, eat some homemade wings (THANKS REGINA!!) and then made Sherry get out of bed and help me. I know I am sounding mean, but one person could not (quickly):

• make sure the circuit breaker was off


• see if the conduit I was wiggling was the correct one


• and push from one end while pulling from the other end of some tighly run wires which was still running through the insulation and behind the cardboard

So I would like to say thank you to my lovely wife for getting up after you had already gone to bed and helping me last night, even if you were still in your pajamas.

Here is the happy graduate... and his girlfriend, Anne. Check out the pictures from his party on the flickr link. I had a lot of fun and finally got to bond with some of the other male family members. Funny how guys get along so much easier when a game (like horse shoes) is involved.

While out in Vegas I meet up with an old friend from Sengent. We talked a little about work and he mentioned something that gave me an idea for an opportunity. So when I got back I called Gioel and it turned out to be an interesting idea all the way around... so I have agreed to moonlight for the Model Exchange project and do some community maintainance and site development. I am pretty excited about it.

We started a new project in the house. We have torn out the left upstairs bedroom's walls and ceiling in preparation for putting up some new sheet rock and a fresh coat of paint. Pearl has hook us up with a guy from the Church she works at who is charging us $10 an hour for his labor... pretty darn good deal if you ask me, of course that is his rate if I help him. Shawn helped me this weekend and it turn into a bigger project then we had hoped for (surprise, surprise?!) so it took us much longer then expected... and we were not able to get to the Den to start the deconstruction in there.

My sister Leigh has setup a picture site on flickr.

The URL for her photo page is http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124305809@N01/

I have set one up also, my URL is http://www.flickr.com/photos/beebe4/, I will add a link to the right shortly.

Today, I celebrate my 2 year anniversary of being married to my wonderful wife. We have agreed to not spend any money on each other since we just dropped a couple thousand on a very nice vacation to Las Vegas, NV and Scottsdale, AZ... but I decided to get her some flowers anyway. And still trying to convince her that we can afford a decent dinner... maybe at our favorite place, Fellini's (not that same chain as in Atlanta). They have the most amazing salads there, big enough for two man-children to share and still have left overs!

I will post pictures of the vacation soon... you can go to my yahoo pictures to see them now, I just haven't commented on them or organized them very well.

Details as to what we did will be coming soon too. Feel free to leave us a happy anniversary comment below!!!